Review

Parents want the best for their children. They want them to go to university, get a well paid job or at least eke out a comfortable existence. They don't, as a general rule, approve of bands; preferring resources to be committed to 'worthwhile' causes such as work and education as opposed to fanciful exertions more than likely to end in failure. It's difficult, then, not to feel for the guardians of Glasgow quartet Divorce, who having already seen their offspring devote time and money to the outfit then had to go through the trauma of being introduced to their music.

Oh, the pride they must have felt...

In case you've not cottoned on, Divorce are a thoroughly unpleasant entity. They are in fact the virtual antithesis of what any parent would hope their child to become in; a warped, abhorrent sonic atrocity that'll blow speakers, bludgeon eardrums and have pretty much everyone in the same vicinity writhing in repulsion. The group's debut album could almost have been conceived by the freakish, deformed brute depicted on its cover such is the tasteless and utterly insensitive way it goes about its business. It really is horrendous in practically every sense, but that doesn't mean a select few won't be able to salvage some form of perverse enjoyment from the smouldering wreckage.

Ok, so you might need Terminator-like endurance and a handful of mental disabilities, but if you can handle the onslaught you'll more than likely find their braind of audio terrorism a complete thrill. Clearly that's a rather big "if." This record knows not of subtlety or pretence. Guitars screech like fingernails being drawn down a blackboard, drums rattle like the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan, while Jennie Fulk's vocals resemble the shrill shrieks of a hyena undergoing torture. Melody is scant and obstructed; there are odd number such as "Aids Of Space" and "Pencils Giant Pencils" which do at least resemble viable songs, but even they barely last before descending into incendiary chaos. To all intents and purposes, it's a merciless 40-minute assault that'll leave you sprawled across the floor, battered, bruised and sluttishly begging for the violation to recommence.

Most of course won't be able to comprehend how anyone could find such a fiendish and brutal assault on the senses at all pleasurable. The truth, though, is that this LPs extreme, confrontational and impenetrable qualities epitomise pretty much everything that's great about noise punk and all its related guises. Their parents no doubt envisaged a markedly different career path, but although Divorce are hardly about to break into wider conscience (thank Christ!) they can at least sleep sound in the knowledge that their children are doing them proud - albeit in their own obtuse, deviant way.